Boiling water is generating electricity! Most efficient way to do it for me. Ask me how I know.

It works great, I've actually had an offer for it if I wanted to stop doing dungeons, but I don't. It's sooooo boring.

And: what! No, yours is great.

You use it mostly for killing stuff now, but your level of control and finesse means you could totally branch out into, idk, construction or manufacturing or something.

I guess that doesn't mean you wouldn't be bored, but there are options.

I suppose disaster relief and similar could still see use for it.

Those would be good!

And you'd be good at it, you're great at saving people.

Yeah.

Up for checking if my 'hold hand please' light comes on properly?

Yeah, sure.

Boop!

And: light! Also a little chime to get his attention.

That worked.

He also has a button that does the same.

He does not want to press it ever.

We should test mine, too.

Yeah sure.

FYI I didn't know you had one and I don't know where the light would even show up so it might take me a bit to find

Light and chime! It's right next to the handholding part of the wall, inset into it so as to be mostly unobtrusive. Without the chime itself it would be pretty easy to miss.

Yep! Works fine. And there's a chime.

And now you never have to touch it again!

Because I can tell you hated that so much.

It might be expedient someday.

It might!

But you never have to! :D

He has no idea what to say in response to that.

He doesn't need to say anything, she'll just giggle to herself about it in perfect privacy.

The silo works out for the both of them, at least as far as Hye-jin can tell from her end. Which, she mostly can't tell how he's doing over there, but that's the point. It's fine. Backlash is handled at a predictable rate, she doesn't have to try to navigate around her partner's boundaries, and her half of the silo is perfectly comfortable. She might make attempts to personalize it, but she's still kind of wary of Quasar's fingerprints all over it. It hurts more to make something hers and then have it be taken away, than to just not have anything be hers. This is from experience.

The house, though: that's totally hers. Nobody can take that away from her; it is bought and entirely paid off, and it's incredibly cute and she loves it immediately and intensely. She ended up going with something that wasn't in Seoul at all. It's nestled in the countryside among a gorgeous grove of trees, and if it's a little bit of a fixer-upper that's fine by her. She has lots of money to replace the molding and add in hardwood floors and new gutters and paint and it'll end up being exactly what she wants it to be. Which is, admittedly, hers. It's going to be hers hers hers and if she's obnoxious about talking paint choices and furniture and decorating options with everyone for the next several months, well, she doesn't have many friends here anyway, who cares if she drives people away. She's happy.

A little lonely, admittedly, but. She's working on that, too. There's a cute little coffeeshop in the neaby cute little small town, and she can go there in the mornings sometimes. Locals are starstruck by her, but also really sincerely delighted to have her live so close, which. She'll take. Being on a pedestal is also isolating, but she can climb down from one given time, and make actual friends that have no connections with the esper world at all.

They learn how to work together. The guild got the memo and ramped up their acclimation missions, and within the first couple of weeks after their little race they're already tackling the kinds of dungeons that Tae-gun would've had trouble soloing, before. Those are somewhat rare, though, and S-rankers are even rarer—there's not a single one currently active in Korea and the handful of S-rankers abroad aren't so bad as to need Tae-gun's help—so they're mostly sticking to the kinds of dungeons Tae-gun did use to solo. The upside is that this time they're not a net increase to his backlash levels, anymore, on average, since not only is Kim Hye-jin guiding him afterwards but also her presence makes him have to use his powers less.

Being who they are, they do also occasionally tackle smaller dungeons solo. It's just good sense, and definitely better than spending time idling when there aren't any dungeons around that require them to work together. No races, though, at least for now; public opinion needs to settle.

And one day, she gets an email.

Kim Hye-jin-nim,

My name is Lee Garam, and I work at Lucid Guild. We've been avidly watching your exploits, and everyone here is a big fan of yours! Would you be willing to meet up for tea and talk shop sometime? We'd love to get to know you better and have a chat about ways we could benefit each other or collaborate in the future!

Yours,
Lee Garam

She gets lots of emails every day, actually.

This one isn't different from any of the others. Another guild attempting poaching. She's used to that.

Ignored.

A few days after that, someone intercepts her on the way to the cute little coffeeshop.

"Kim Hye-jin-nim?" she asks.

...?

"Yes?"

"It's a pleasure to make your acquaintance. I'm Lee Garam, and I work with Lucid Guild. Do you have a moment to chat and have some coffee? On me."

"Not really. I like to have my mornings before missions quiet." And she is just going to keep walking. Bye.

...uh.